This article is about the letter of the Latin alphabet. For other uses, see P (disambiguation).
For technical reasons, ":P" redirects here. For the keyboard symbol, see List of emoticons.
Pp
Usage
Writing Latin script
system
Type Alphabetic and logographic
Languag Latin language
e of
origin
Sound [p]
values [pʰ]
[(p)f]
[pʼ]
[b]
In Unico U+0050, U+0070
de
Alphabe 16
tical
position
History
Develop
ment
Time c. 700 BCE to present
period
Descend • Ᵽ
•℘
ants •₱
•⅌
•℗
•♇
•ꟼ
•¶
Sisters Ππ
Ⲡ
П
ף פ ּפ
ف
ܦ
ࠐ
𐎔
በ
ጰ
ፐ
Պպ
प
𐍀
པ
Other
Associat p(x), ph
ed
graphs
Writing Left-to-right
directio
n
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in
the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an
introductory guide on IPA symbols,
between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and
see Help:IPA. For the distinction
transcription delimiters.
ISO basic
Latin alphabet
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMm
NnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYy
Zz
v
t
e
P (minuscule: p) is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English
alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its
name in English is pee (pronounced /ˈpiː/ ⓘ), plural pees.[1]
History
The Semitic Pê (mouth), as well as the Greek Π or π (Pi), and the Etruscan and Latin letters
that developed from the former alphabet all symbolized /p/, a voiceless bilabial plosive.
Proto- Western
Proto- Phoenician Etruscan Latin
Egyptian Canaanite Greek
Sinaitic Pe P P
pʿit Pi
Late Renaissance or early Baroque design of a P, from 1627
Use in writing systems
Pronunciation of ⟨p⟩ by language
Orthography Phonemes
Catalan /p/
Standard
/pʰ/
Chinese (Pinyin)
English /p/, silent
French /p/, silent
German /p/
Portuguese /p/
Spanish /p/
Turkish /p/
English
In English orthography, ⟨p⟩ represents the sound /p/.
A common digraph in English is ⟨ph⟩, which represents the sound /f/, and can be used to
transliterate ⟨φ⟩ phi in loanwords from Greek. In German, the digraph ⟨pf⟩ is common,
representing a labial affricate /pf/.
Most English words beginning with ⟨p⟩ are of foreign origin, primarily French, Latin and
of such words often start with ⟨f⟩, since English is a Germanic language and thus has
Greek; these languages preserve the Proto-Indo-European initial *p. Native English cognates
undergone Grimm's law; a native English word with an initial /p/ would reflect Proto-Indo-
native English words with non-initial ⟨p⟩ are quite common; such words can come from
European initial *b, which is so rare that its existence as a phoneme is disputed. However,
either Kluge's law or the consonant cluster /sp/ (PIE: *p has been preserved after s).
P is the eighth least frequently used letter in the English language.
Other languages
In most European languages, ⟨p⟩ represents the sound /p/.
Other systems
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨p⟩ is used to represent the voiceless bilabial plosive.
Other uses
Main article: P (disambiguation)
A bold italic letter p is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "quiet". It
stands for the Italian word piano.[2][3]
Related characters
Ancestors, descendants and siblings
The Latin letter P represents the same sound as the Greek letter Pi, but it looks like the
Greek letter Rho.
𐤐 : Semitic letter Pe, from which the following symbols originally derive:
Π π : Greek letter Pi
𐌐 : Old Italic and Old Latin P, which derives from Greek Pi, and is the
ancestor of modern Latin P. The Roman P had this form (𐌐) on coins
and inscriptions until the reign of Claudius, c. 50 AD.
𐍀 : Gothic letter pertra/pairþa, which derives from Greek Pi
П п : Cyrillic letter Pe, which derives from Greek Pi
Ⲡ ⲡ : Coptic letter Pi
Պ պ: Armenian letter Pe
P with diacritics: Ṕ ṕ Ṗ ṗ Ᵽ ᵽ Ƥ ƥ ᵱ[4] ᶈ[5]
Turned P: P d, an additional letter of the Latin script not encoded in Unicode
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to P:[6]
U+1D18 ᴘ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL P
U+1D3E ᴾ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL P
U+1D56 ᵖ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL P
p: Subscript small p was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal
standardization in 1902[7]
Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols
₱ : Philippine peso sign
𝒫, 𝓅 : script letter P (uppercase and lowercase, respectively), used in mathematics.
(In other contexts, a script typeface (or computer font) should be used.)
℘ Weierstrass p
℗ : sound recording copyright symbol
♇ : Pluto symbol, a monogram of the letters "PL", and also the initials of Percival
Lowell, heralding his role in its discovery
ꟼ : Reversed P was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for puella (girl)[8]
Ꝑ ꝑ, Ꝓ ꝓ, Ꝕ, ꝕ : Various forms of P were used for medieval scribal abbreviations[9]
Other representations
Computing
U+0050 P LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P
U+0070 p LATIN SMALL LETTER P
U+FF30 Ｐ FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P
U+FF50 ｐ FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER P
Other
NATO phonetic Morse code
Papa {{#parsoidfragment:32}} ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ⓘ
American manual British manual Unified
Flag
Signal flag alphabet (ASL fingerspelli alphabet (BSL fingerspelli English
semaphore
ng) ng) Braille
See also
Mind your Ps and Qs
Pence or "penny", the English slang for which is p (e.g. "20p" = 20 pence)
References
1. "P", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New
International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "pee," op. cit.
2. Randel, Don Michael (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music (4th ed.). Cambridge,
MA, US: Harvard University Press Reference Library.
3. "Piano". Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary. Archived from the original on
22 October 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
4. Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols
with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11.
Retrieved 2018-03-24.
5. Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic
characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11.
Retrieved 2018-03-24.
6. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
characters for the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19.
Retrieved 2018-03-24.
7. Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to
encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic
Alphabet" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-
03-24.
8. Perry, David J. (2006-08-01). "L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman
Characters to UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14.
Retrieved 2018-03-24.
9. Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd
Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (2006-01-
30). "L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the
UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-09-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.